To which Bob Paddock replied:
> Alas I think this is really what I need to do in the end.
>
> Tho I use Opera from http://www.operasoftware.com that is
> fast and small.
Here is one way to make yarn run a windows browser to view html text:
Assume:
a) You are in ``real'' DOS or in ``real mode'', not in a DOS
box within windows
b) You run windows 3.1 or 3.11
c) Your windows directory (probably c:\\windows) is in
your dos PATH variable.
d) You use metamail.exe to process MIME encoded messages
e) You are using Internet Explorer for your browser (just for
sample purposes).
Then put this line in your mailcap file within your yarn
directory:
text/html; win.com c:\\iexplore\\iexplore.exe file://c:\\yarn\\%s
Now when you have part of a MIME message in HTML, windows will
automatically start and will automatically run internet explorer
which will automatically display the html text message -- Honest,
I tried it to make sure. When you quit explorer, you are still in
windows. When you quit windows you go back to yarn and your current
message. If you want, you can automatically or manually connect to
your ISP when in windows, to go to any links in the html message.
A few notes on how this works:
------------------------------
Windows 3.1 and 3.11 can be run with arguments, for instance, win.com
edit.com file.doc, so that it automatically runs your chosen windows
program on your chosen file when it starts up. I do not know if win 9x,
NT and the like also have this feature.
In mailcap you need to use double backslashes to specify paths because
metamail.exe strips one of them when it reads mailcap. The
the file containing the html text is specified as C:\\yarn\%s because
the temporary file that yarn passes to metamail is stored in the main
yarn directory, and you have to give internet explorer (or other
browser) the full path of the file to open.
The main program for Internet Explorer, iexplore.exe can be given
a file or URL to start up on like this:
iexplore.exe file://filename <ENTER>
iexplore.exe htty://www.some-address.com <ENTER>
If your windows browser does not take a file as argument, you will
have to just tell metamail to start the browser (such as Opera) and
manually open the temporary file created by yarn. This file is
called something like, tiaa.aa, tiaa.ab etc. and is stored in
usually, C:\yarn. Just go to the yarn directory in windows and
look for the temporary looking filename. Alternately, you can use
a batch file that temporarily defines the temp file as you ``home''
page.
Finally, if you use yarnx (32-bit yarn) like me you will find that
yarn will retain a) yarn itself b) metamail.exe c) an extra copy
of command.com to run metamail --- all in RAM before you start
windows. I have about 30 megs of ram and still had no trouble
running windows & explorer. However, those short on ram may find their
computers can not run all these programs at once. For such reasons,
it is wise to load yarn high when you start it to begin with.
Finally, finally -- to run a windows program from yarn within
a DOS box, you can use the schedule.exe and run.exe programs --
but that is another message!